I just want to precise that this post represents my personal opinion and that of my cousin that played with me during this Alpha
we both played Deprived so as you will see most Example involve comparison with Deprived related ships and components.

I did check Eclipse and Vanguard for knowledge and in game comparison but i certainly do not have as deep actual ingame testing with those factions that i have with deprived.

I'll Try to abord on different Sections of the game that will be as follow:

Factions

Skill Tree

Balance
- Lasers

Shields and Armor

Modules

Craft and loot system

Flavor and random other ideas

Feel Free to check the sections you are interested, to comment, argue or even correct me if i'm wrong.

Remember that we are all here to give feedback and help the devs improve the game, Have a good reading and have a good day.

Factions

pretty good update indeed, all pirate factions have different enough theme (both in weaponry and visually)

Screecher: are like the crazy pirates, mostly using canon and missiles and ramming you like there’s no tomorrow

Nebulords: are sort of slaver cartel, decent weaponry, and they often have ships that will try to capture yours ( i had a surprise when the base could also board my ships the first time i tried)

Pyramid : is the hightech crazy ... they literally have the best of laser technology, and they can do so much damage from so far that you have to be pretty careful when dealing with them.

All of them have a chance to drop their faction ship blueprint, i managed to craft pyramid premier and hoooo boy how that thing wreak havoc while being one of the most tanky ship i had on my fleet. (like 5k hp, 15k armor, 6k shield and with over 500dps after some lvl) however the Alpha-mod sucked a bit.

Can't wait to see more and more faction showing up to give everyone the flavor they need in this game.

On a side note, I think the outer rim of the galaxy should be increasingly dangerous, I really didn’t felt in danger when roaming there, there are many possible warp location every few sector, but it should really be more danger,there the outer area should have really aggressive faction, bigger and tougher fleet size that you either need a very strong and well-built fleet of your own or friends to roam the area with, also increased chance to meet alien factions.

Additionnaly if unchecked for long time, when Faction gather at least 3 systems, they should become increasingly dangerous (even in core sector area, the big ring where we could pop stations) increasing all their fleet size and how fast they pop patrols (that can then start attacking stations and even defeat a mothership if left unattended)

Ideally it should also increase the chances to have faction “raid boss" poping in the edge of the galaxy that would slowly move to attack a player faction, would require 3-5 players at least to defeat, with high rewards/rare components for crafting/unique and powerful mods/ship blueprints (super dreadnought, super carrier, or simply "capital ship" ? with stats almost double of normal ships of that class or double carrier stats if you take the Capital ship, but able to only have a SINGLE one of them no matter the faction ship)
OR they could provide a temporary boost once killed to the faction that killed him for a few hours.

Another idea is to have a small chance in every battle that an alien scoot be present (cloaked?) just like in the versus AI mode, if you spot it and destroy it, it will warp an alien vanguard. (could add some fun/spice to all fights in conquest)

This would add a small chance for some fun with aliens pop, pirate should become real threat if unattended, making the conquest mode more dynamic overall.
also maybe different factions of pirate should probably be at war with eachother as well (having screecher/nebulords/pyramid) in same system roaming felt a bit weird, could work for some sort of Event where all pirate faction ally against player faction and try to raid even harder player bases (forcing players to stop attacking eachother and start defending)
Otherwise the conquest mode will pretty rapidly reach a stale mate state once the game is release (already almost felt the case after only a week in alpha)

Skill tree of ships

The idea overall is good, I like it a lot and can make a nice difference between invested and non-invested people while not being game breaking.

I’d say that regarding trees some are good and some are bad and i would like to add suggestion to improve and give more clarity overall.

there's most of time 3 starter lines and i think they should be changed to something like that:

LEFT: FACTION Tree, list here the stuff that should match faction flavor and generally add the survivability area of a ship in here, i play deprived, so for example all the deprived ship should have at least the line "increase deprived ship regen by x%", but there should also be things like additional hull, crew, shields, shield regen and so on, but the skill/passive in that tree should match Faction identity only. But it could be +structure/shield/armor, lower shield energy cost?

MIDDLE: this should be the Ship type tree, playing a Merlin then all Merlin should have the same CORE tree, related to weaponry, all merlin use a mix of Canon/weaponry regardless of roles, so just put various stat like dmg/range/weapon cooldown with cannon AND missile and let us choose which one we want to specialize into, reduction on power usage for those a weapon of choice so on... (could be mutually exclusive, if you pick Missiles energy requirement then you lock the canon one), I think any movement upgrade should fit in here (2 line, one for top speed, one for angular speed) because depending the weapon you sometime simply prefer better angular speed to retarget or better top speed to reach your target (like with a cqc) so it’s still on the offensive area.

RIGHT: here should be ROLE specific upgrades, you have an engineer then you should have stuff related to more power and better support modules, I saw that too many time that right side had stuff I didn’t even use on that particular ship (like plasma mine mine dmg, that’s too specific, or 3 lines related to warp module but that ship won’t use one) I think you should add TAGS to modules, and they could have different tags each (see below), and then that Tree should upgrade certain tags. I think it’s more or less what you’re doing already but it should be clearer, a general or tag specific passive decrease in power use for module could be a good idea in that tree.
let’s say Warp Jump is “movement”, but fleet warp is in my opinion all of “movement”, “support” and “AOE” as is adds an area and can affect other ship if you follow the logic.

Omicron module would be Aggressive/Support/AOE
Stalker Mine would be Aggressive
Frag mine Aggressive/AOE

Then you add 3 Tags you consider be the key role of that specific ship and give upgrade related to it
Just remove the non-generic tags, replace everything with more generic things so that it can affect a broader range of modules and gives more choices to players (and of course change module description to show which tags it has)

Another possibility for those Ultimate would be to slightly alter the ships design to reflect the new upgrades

Left tree would add one 2x2 or two 1x2 engineering slot in which you can slot (only?) new armor/shield or whatever (which do increase overall survival)

Middle tree could add a few new weapon slots depending on the ship design exemple on Merlin ANT you have Two 2x3 slots and one 3x2 + 4x2 missile. then you could decide to uprade either canon or missile and depending on your choice you would get the 2 side canon upgraded to 2x4 or the missile upgraded to 4x3, both option giving access to slightly more or slighty different weapon on those slot while not increasing too much the design/total dps

Right Tree is about modules so you could get things a 2x2 or 2x3 engineer slots and an additionnal +100 energy (or simply +100-200 max energy) so you can possibly slot more or better mods on the ship. (carrier could get better hangar sizes to fit better wings)

Also, the bonus on general survival (Left tree) and movement should scale UP depending on the SHIP SIZE AND TIER if you keep Flat numbers (cause seriously who want to pick a +50 armor upgrade on a dreadnaught? It’s just absurd and a waste of point)
OR even better instead of flat rates to things like shield/armor/structure, just make % upgrade that would fit any design and just higher % depending on tier.

Ex tier 2 frigate get things like
+1/2/3/4/5% structure or shield or armor (you can put all or some available and let people pick) also it should be a total modifier … not upgrade to base stat of ship
+10/20/30/40/50% deprived regen (regen seems to be fixed to 60hp/arm regen so while decent on small ship it’s a bit ridiculous on bigger ships) otherwise make the regen heal maybe 2% structure and armor making the regen be IF 3-4% fully upgraded through skill tree.

Note: regarding my idea of Faction tree, I’m not sure whether when you craft other faction tree you should have their tree as well or keep yours, cool stuff that fit the pirate/alien faction can also be fun. (example screecher are ram crazy give them some passive ram bonus in that tree at some point)

Another note, with 30 pts you could at most afford 2 of the 3 alpha mods, meaning that you need AT least 10pts invested in the tree to unlock the alpha mod for it OR alternatively keep the alpha at 15 points either 10 in the tree and another 5 anywhere or 15 in that tree(but you could only pick one), this way people have to make meaningful choice regarding their ships roles.

Right now, you just ask people to put 15pts in whatever and the final choice of alpha mod is between 3 different modules so … not much difference except you need to think more carefully how you invest your points.
The ultimate from left tree should really be mechanic changer or massive boost to survival.

E.g. of potential alpha mod: Deprived regen works constantly even when hit during battle, eclipse shield regen work in battle, +25% structure, +25% shield, +25% armor (again … use faction thematic) either let people pick a single trait make it strong and faction related, or give a choice of 2-3 “survival” related upgrade.

Ultimate from Middle tree could be anything related to the ship Class/Weapon, so you can either pick a passive boost to one of the two weapon the ship usually uses, like 20% dmg boost to canon, or 20% to missile, or give a choice of a module that usually fit “aggressive” play. Because this tree is all about weapon and/or reaching target with movement (weapon overload, focus fire, engine boost)
Ultimate from Right tree should be regarding support/module overall, so that part can be specific to ships that would fit this ship general playstyle, aggressive mod -20% energy, support mod -20% so on… this way you enable people to specialize and slot more module of that tag or simply use other things with the now saved energy. When you see that some mods have 800 requirements … that might not be a small benefit in the end.

Note: carrier wings should probably be in the Right tree, since they are considered modules right now, and clearly if there is a 20% reduction in their power usage it would enable some real nice builds with them.

I think this model of skill tree would be both better streamlined compared to what is actually done, you know that a tree is survival and depends on your faction, one is based on weaponry/speed and last one is about support/module
Each have a role, each have an ultimate that will change or enhance how you play that specific ship
and i think that overall is more implicating to the player that the current one.

right now the "survival" area is meh most point give so little that its not worth it to spend any point (except a few ships that have good amount, like the Pyramid premier that gets 1000 shield for 10pts) but that's rare.
The weapon upgrade are right now the only interesting choice because they impact range/dmg output in %
the Module area is aboslutly useless as well.
the Alpha-Mod are ... well sometimes upgrade are decent, sometimes they are nearly useless (i remember an alpha mode upgrade like 600armor or 150 structure/300 arm and 600 shields) i was like ... well for a Carrier it kinda sucks.

final thing for this Area, please add a way to respec ships point (either with lot of IGC or with shop currency)

Balance

So, discussing to a few players, I noticed that most felt more attracted to Eclipse faction at first, you have stats on your side i think, so you can definitely see how many active players there was in each faction. Considering how much of the map eclipse had (basically double from the other 2 factions) if your stats can confirm or infirm that it would be nice, as this probably will show you faction attraction at launch. And if there is a too strong imbalance in faction pop it will be a problem in the long run.
Players do no enjoy for most being the underdogs and will either drop the game or flock to Eclipse to be on the winning side and this won’t be good on the long run.

I think I’m going to repeat myself from last reports, but Faction description has not been respected AT ALL, Eclipse were supposed to have less energy than other faction and they are on par for every ship.

They have identical Structure, and usually more total base defense (armor + shield combined) than both Vanguard and Deprived ships.
Also the word i heard a bit was that Deprived ships kinda looked like trashbin compared to say ... eclipse where most ships do look sleeker. cant say i disagree, deprived dont look particularly appealing visualy. but ... i like their game mechanic and background so i picked them. but this is something devs should be aware of.

An idea would be to give an increasing bonus to the underdog factions, if too many player want to play Eclipse, fine, but let Vanguard and Deprived have a +% to all ship stats (armor/shields/weapon damage/structure) based on faction (active)population

i think the bonus should be about those

Max is 100% all stats if there is 30% or more faction pop difference
50% at 15%
25% at 5%
no bonus if less than 5% total pop difference

so for exemple

50% Ecplise
30% Vanguard
20% Deprived

Ecplise get bonus against no one
Vanguard gets a 55-60% bonus against eclipse
Deprived gets 100% against Eclipse and about 40% against vanguard

While 1v1 would clearly be easier with those bonus, they do not guarantee a win against 2 or more players.
and stats wise you have double stats as deprived but ecplise is still also more likely to fight you 2v1

those bonus should help keep population as close as status quo as possible

Note: thats my idea. maybe devs have a better one to prevent a faction being too powerful.

Notes on Lasers

still feel way too strong for a few reasons(in my opinion)

They have Both high damage dealer at Close(CQC/Disintegrator) and Long Range(HHL/Spear)
- Where are the close range 1x3 canon with 60dps ?
- Where are long range canons with 80-100+ dps ?

They require NO AMMO (so no need to waste precious slot on ammo AND field 1-2 ammo dispenser)

they do double damage against armor which with next point make them top pick

Issues related to Shields/armor/mods treated later in post

Every single fight on every Faction side I had (eclipse/deprived/vanguard) … everyone used laser, not once i saw someone use canon or missiles.

80% if not more of the Halloween cup was laser (especially phantom)

I myself tried to use cannon or missile build as deprived ships are filled with missiles slots, I even tried the faction missiles, everything feels disapointing at best.

one of the issue i see is that most if not all Missile (and canon) eat ammo like a kid eat candies, you need to spend over 10 SLOTS of engineering just to have 120s worth of AMMO for any weapon and if you want more you absolutely need an ammo dispenser and hope that it doesn’t get destroyed during the fight or you’re in royal trouble.
Another Issue, ammo box can get destroyed if your opponent can shoot directly to your structure, making you loose your ammo for good (and that sucks)

Example 1: Merlin AAN that had loads of missile slots could have 8 Faction missiles and needed 8 crates just to hold 120sec, said missiles had a whooping DPS of … 13…. and a range of 7500(range is actually pretty good)
For comparison sake for the same slot size and less energy requirement I could field a blaster canon with ~30dps that do not require me to slot ammo or ammo dispenser. How is this balanced?

Example 2: is the Cargo … 8 missiles as well, you put a mining complex or salvage module then all the 8 remaining engineer slots MUST be ammo just so you can have weapon on your ships. The Eclipse version can be FILLED with lasers in addition to the mining complex AND then you can still put loads of armor to it. How is this balanced? An Eclipse cargo has both higher damage output AND survivability also why does the Eclipse has 1000 more shields AND same energy/structure/armor/cargo as the deprived one where is the Faction lore respected?

if I even wanted use say autocannons AND missiles on my Merlin I should basically fill ALL my remaining engineering slots with ammo just to be able to fight 120sec, autocannon would need about 12 ammo crates and 8 ammo crates for missiles and even then, I would still have lower DPS AND SURVIVABILITY than just going all blaster canon ignoring completely the missile slot and just putting armor there and putting 3k shields + mods on the rest of engineering slots.

Here are a few ideas to make other weapons more attractive: (not everything should be implemented as is but at least some of them)

Increase ammo crate ammo value by 50 to 100% each or put a skill tree line with those values for every ship that can use either of cannon/missiles (should probably be around the first or second line in the tree)

Add a skill line to reduce Spread by 10-20-30-40-50% somewhere in all ships using canon (replace that by reduce weapon cooldown by 5-10-15-20-25% on ships with 2x4 Slots and that hence can use heavy cannon)

Considering the Extremely low DPS per energy needed for missile … consider boosting their damage by a magnitude of at least 50% (either stock damage or through Skill tree upgrade) *

OR Make missiles partially be penetrating (maybe 15% missile damage or 15% chance to ignore armor)if they keep low dps but have a chance or partially pierce armor i'd probably be fine with it

Regarding Deprived … regen should definitely work with at least 50% efficiency in battle passively OR could be activated at 100% efficiency through skill tree like proposed previously

AND/OR increase AOE radius for replenishing by 100% at least (AOE is so small the ships need to be way too close to even regen ammo)

AND/OR consider upgrading to 10% ammo regen (or always at least regen 1 ammo) because I had a bug with weapon that had too low ammo stock (I think on a reaper torp) that if regen was not at least 1 then it wouldn’t regen at all so I had to field 2 ammo dispensers to be able to regen my ships.

OR create a smaller/cheaper version that is PERSONAL and not AOE. So that it can be fielded on ships that require ammo.
Increase by 20-25% the base DPS of all cannon weapons (since all canon have travel speed + spread many times some of your shell won’t even touch your target I think it’s a pretty fair trade off, more damage for less accuracy)**

OR Consider non-Energy canon variant to ignore shields all together

OR Make more gauss style weapon that would ignore shields, and like gauss have “powered” ones that have much higher damage but won ignore shield by being electrically charged.

*Sure, Missiles are great utilities since they can avoid LOS and shoot at 360 (and sometimes shoot over asteroids), but with such low DPS they are often better being ignored completely to be replaced by Armor that has higher value per ships for survival purpose than the missiles (for the Merlin AAN the replacement of the missile was equivalent to an additional minimum of 5k armor and 3k shields and on my book its better than 8 slots of engineering wasted and 104dps for 16 missile slot) while nice on fast frigate/battlecruiser that have high mobility they become useless on bigger ships that won’t be able to kite anyway.

**Example with the heavy blaster canon (red mod I forgot the name) …. How many time I missed some if not all shells of my shot because between the time I shot and the shell reach destination the target moved, or some of my own ship moved slightly or the spread was too big and my ship took the shot instead of my intended target. That kind of scenario do not happen with lasers, they shoot, they hit the intended target 95% of time.

Notes on Shields and Armor

Shields are a bit expensive since once you've set your weapons you dont have all that much power left in most case, leaving you with the option to go low on shields and stack all that remains in Armor

Shields do not seem to regen in fight or they take such a beating that the regen is pointless anyway

they are too easy to counter (EMP, shield disabler, emp weapons)

Even laser that do 50% dmg on them still beat them with ease and once they get to your armor they melt your ships in seconds

Since Armor is the cheapest and Only defense that do no require energy combined with the fact that shields are so easily breakable it hugely contribute to laser being the Top pick weapons

Some ideas to fix some of the problem that situation make (om not suggesting to apply everything at once)

Make Shield Cheaper in energy

give Shield provide least 50% more shield and regen

Make shield Regen work in battle and make all shield regen between 50 to 100% faster to make shield and shield regen a

meaningful defense against energy/missiles ( i still think bullet should ignore shields or some variant of it)

Make shield overload 50-100% more expensive to match the increase in shield regen

Make Adaptive armor a viable choice over simple armor stacking or shield stacking

Make it provide 60-75% of heavy armor protection (they cost energy and are not cheap to slot that's why)

Make it adapt to the first damage type receive and every 5-10sec adapt to the damage received (missile/canon/energy)

while adapted, armor abosorbs 50% of that damage type, Piercing part of some weapon ignore the damage reduction and still hit the structure.(piercing bullet, phantom lasers, focus fire)

Make Laser do only 25-33% damage to shields

The idea with this change is to make that armor be an alternative to shields/armor, and be a counter to weapon stacking. (looking at you laser staking)

for example any player that would stack only canon, laser or missile on his fleet would instantly loose 50% of dps,
This option would force player to think their ships weapons/fleet composition instead of dumbly stacking the best weapon/ship they have since an alternative weapon would be able to do some full dps, also giving a chance that on the 5sec mark to refresh the adaptation the second weapon will be counted then its main weapon will do full dps for 5sec.
considering that most ships do have 2 different weapons they can use it's not a stupid idea.

Now, you have to separate Ranked balance and Conquest mode as both have totally different way to play.

Its ok to have only 2min of ammo in ranked as you can just make supply station and/or warp to mothership to replenish ammo on the fly, and if you lose a ship it doesnt matter you can warp a new one, so having ammo dispenser mod is probably the least of your problem.

In conquest you can't stop at a nearby mothership/supply station during a fight, if you lose a ship in battle you'll have to warp or travel to the nearest available mothership and repair your ships from main menu shipyard (by paying IGC)

So in conquest your deal is to keep your ship alive as best as you can (especially the one with the loot) you will need more defense and support modules than you would bring in a ranked mode, unless of course you are farming supply lane with 2+ players ... just have a scoot and insta gib ships as they warp in but You definitely cant farm pirates the same way.

Also remember that ranked gives you access to a wide selection of equipement that you would not have access easily in conquest mode, and conquest gives (on the long run) access to equipement that is not available in ranked.

so im not sure how devs plan to balance 2 sides of the game that plays differently. (even games like world of warcraft never shit balanced between pve and pvp modes)

Notes on modules

Modules are becoming plenty and that's in my opinion a good thing.
however i feel that most of them are always "activable" for a short period of time, and that i'd like to see more passive and toggle on/off ones
Also i'd like to see some module have some kind of effect in conquest mode
eg: better speed, have on screen information about total ressources in asteroid fields, being able to scan enemy fleet maybe different scan level like formation and better one to also be able to scan equipement, being able to stealth in enemy territory
i dont think its out of the question since formation already have "stealth" in their description, module already have that but either make specific module or extend usability in conquest mode only so that provide module provide specific skill as long as the ship with module is alive
eg Scan module could enable scan on conquest as well, sensor array provide +1 radius to radar

rule of thumb should be that activable module would generally cost less energy to slot but are situational and require much more micro managing of fleet while Passive module should be a lot more expensive to slot and provide a constant bonus (that should also be lower than the active one variant if any)

AOE shield should be a passive providing the opportunity to have a support/shielding ship for your fleet, AoE size should be bigger too. the support ship being some kind of shield fortress and it would also be counterable by simply entering the AOE to dps things (this would for exemple prevent long range stacking of enemy fleet, im looking at you heavy heat laser/Spear of Wrath stacking fleet)
- Or make a Fortress shield module that do exactly that (but cost more than the active one)

Omicron Module damage for its size and energy cost, 3x3 there are far more useful things you can take. a simple 1x1 flak mine for 50 energy does much much more damage.
- Option 1 : significantly boost the damage AND/OR AOE radius and leave the mechanic as it (should do much? more than a flak mine considering the 3x3 and energy cost)
- Option 2 : make is a personal aura that does light dmg in aoe around self and heal for a % of damage done (self OR distributed evenly amonst friendly ships in AOE)
- Option 3 : make it an AOE centered on self that does burst damage, delayed heal (let's say just take the total amount of damage its doing right now but released in a single burst) the visual effect could send forward a first wave (redish or yellowish) outward your ship that first deals damage, and when the wave reach outer limit, it come back (greenish/Blueish) and heal all ship when coming back to your ship.
-as the name generator let me think its "constant" i guess option 2 fits better, otherwise the option 3 feels more like "explosion/wave" stuff. its design right now feels more like an "omicron probe"

Shield disabler could last 10sec and have higher CD and/or energy cost in compensation

Plasma web for its size/cost/and how it works has ridiculous dps, either make it ignore shield AND/OR armor for that DPS OR at least double the DPS AND/OR double its duration. as is, it is not worth taking

Overload weapon change the mod to be Togglable, increasing weapon CD by 20% and loosing 1-2% structure per seconde while active (that could make things fun)

warp/Fleet warp i had a bug on my Hecate Carriers that none of them could use any warp at all (and that was annoying especially since one had it as an alpha mod)

Shield Drain for the cost/size i'd like to see it drain a small amount of all ships in the AOE passively OR with previous idea for shield Applying a flat Degen to all ships and applying to himself the total ammount leeched in an aoe around him instead. making it a decent pick for large ships that go brawling Increase in energy cost and Tier/rarity could be an option as well.

Gravity pull is HUGE AND EXPENSIVE and the pull traction just feels not strong enough for its cost. for a 2min CD and 800 energy mod, it should literally do a hard pull on center of everything in the aoe, making all ship ram eachother and mess formations the hard way, it's most likely a one time use in most battle so it should have a decisive impact on the battle.

Gravity push is like the baby gravity pull, its smaller, cheaper, and should be on relative short cd as its main use is only to break formation by pushing ships away. most likely they wont take damage unless they have poor formation and you use it very well place (like push the front one into the one behind him or push them into asteroids)

Considering size and cost of the Fleet repair drone, you could make it a passive regen (just imagine a fleet of nano repair bot repairing automatically the damage of a fleet) just lower the base at which it regenerates armor and structure.
- we already have lot of potential "burst heal", healing stasis, healing lasers, armor patch, repair drones.

Armor patch doesnt provide a meaningful armor regen, make it regen 50% missing armor (this way its better used when you're low and is wasted if used too early)

Make Stealth and mass Stealth auto toggle when tagging "out of combat" that would be a big quality of life improvement for those who want to use stealth, making hit and run tactics, usually you want your ship in stealth as much as possible triggering it ourselve is a bit annoying.

- consider making a "Ghost" module, combining the stealth and no radar detection in a 3x3/3x2/2x3 sized module that would cost a bit more energy to slot (again for those who would like to be more stealthy)

Radar module, increase energy cost, make it increase vision range (either by a falt amount or by a %) passively and increase stealth detection radius.
- OR make a different module that actually does that, and that ideally could stack (making the possibility to have actual scoot)

Make an AOE shield overload variant, Much bigger, more expensive, would apply the Shield overload in an aura around the ship (togglable, with a 10sec CD to turn on or off, to prevent people timing the invincibility against big burst), but also applying the normal shield degen to all ships. effectively making your fleet temporarly invincible for as long as their shield can hold the degen but making them completely vulnerable afterwards
- Bear in mind that except Carrier specifically built for the overload no other ship can hold the degen inflicted by overload for a long time, it would be barely 2-6 seconds invincibility on smaller ships and maybe 10-15sec invincibility on a dreadnough that would be especially outfitted to have shield+regen.
- EMP (module AND weapons) should work against shield EVEN under overload (right now even an EMP burst wont work against an overloaded shield) only counter is things that ignore shields and shield disabler mod.

Focus fire module should last 50-100% more time. could increase cost AND/OR CD to compensate
- Make a passive variant, bigger, more expensive to slot and providing maybe 10-15% chance for any projectile/missile to pierce armor
- a Laser passive variant could be made with only 5% chance to ignore armor passively OR 10-15% chance to ignore shields
- a Laser Active variant could be made with same duration as focus fire, and give laser with EITHER 25% chance to ignore shields OR 10-15% chance to ignore armor

Point defense could be more efficient at taking down things (1.5-2x take down rate), increase energy to compensate as it will become one of the only defense against missile if they are boosted

Salvage module (please make this one auto pick salvage in vicinity without activation (its really Quality of life)

Make a module that Adds Cargo ? maybe +2 cargo per engineer slot used.(especially if you plan to add more components to drop/loot)

Wings modules of Carriers
- Extremely expensive in energy
- Poor dps for the energy cost (what weapon has 35-40DPS with a 400 energy cost ?)
- very fragile to point defense as they should be
- somehow some missile just kill your wings when you are shooting at the same target your wings are (that's frustrating since Deprived carrier come only with misiles and hangar slots)
- the need for ammo on wings is a bit absurd especially considering the ridiculous amount to recharge them
- the only time factor should be "fuel" when running out of fuel (maybe after 1-2 min) figther should go back to carrier to recharge (maybe 30sec to 1min CD to refuel and launch)
- Bomber should only be able to target other ships and only be given attack order (they should have relativeley high dps considering the cost being on par with super high tier weapon such as Spear or Wrath or Gauss)
- Fighter should be able to be sent in attack formation or defensive formation (around a targeted ship), while in defensive formation they shoot down incoming bombers and missiles (it's not a new idea, most space themed game have this sort of option)
- Some Module to boost temporarly or passively Squadron could be an idea

this way bombers would be the choice when wanting to play offensive carrier, and you can field defensive carrier with fighers and have its squadron protection desired target against missile/bomber.

Some more Module with AOE BUFF/Debuff should be considered (think like auras maybe around 8-15K radius) that would boost offensive stats (including Wings) in a relatively high AOE radius, they should be relatively big and expensive (only engineer ships could slot them)

some idea

AOE weapon overload, sacrifice 5% max structure per second on the support ship to enable 20% cd reduction on all weapons

Fleet targeting computer Increase all weapon damage by 20%

Savior, Sacrifice 5% max structure on support ship, heal that amount in an aoe around him to all allied ships (except self) - this would be buffed by healing tags upgrades and by increased structure for exemple.

Singularity generator all enemy ships in the AOE suffer 20-25% reduction in max speed and maneuvrability

Sentient AI wing control: All Wings in aura (10k radius ?) get 25% damage and 25% fire speed (so it work only if you expose your ship and wont work if you just send bombers at 20k range)

Time lord Stasis : AOE triggered Stasis prevent shooting at target and prevent target from all action, put their CD on HOLD for 10sec, 2Min CD

Notes on Craft and loot system

This part is really a personal taste on how craft is and how it should be

i am not sure how research and stuff will work and what devs have in store for the craft part

but anyhow i'll give my opinion

As is i saw a few good thing on craft some blueprint were dropped, they required different weapons/components to be crafted (neutron blaster in mind)

However considering how easy things are droppable right now i dont see much point to the craft system as is (except crafting stuff you cant have otherwise, like pirate modules)
By the end of alpha, i had gazillion of every weapon models, i could have outfitted my whole faction with spear of wrath/gauss/laser/disintegrator beams so on, which doesnt exactly seem natural, i dont think the loot rate will be like that but you never know.

I think that when you destroy a ship, you should only drop various components, and only PART of blueprints the higher the tiers of something the more blueprint pieces you need.

I'm not sure how research station will work, but my idea would be that once you have completed a blueprint, you can give it to research lab + hefty sum of money to finance R&D so that it learns how to mass produce it.

To get a full blueprint you could get it from 3 sources
First: killing ships and salvaging them, without using salvage module the drop rate of components AND blueprint should be extremely low, random full Equipement loot can occur only up to t2 without salvage and up to t3 with salvage module
Second: IF you manage to get a Full equipement you can "dismantle" it, recovering partial components required for its creation and a medium chance to receive a piece of blueprint (chance gets lower at higher Tier equipment)
Third: by simply trading, buy full equipment and dismantle OR just buy the partial/full blueprint.

This way progression isnt too fast even for those farming a lot, and on the longer run, those who farm can actually participate to equip their faction either by Crafting them weapons that they can use or dismantle to learn the blueprint or by selling duplicate blueprint.

then there's two way to have a "complete" blueprint,

either you mark them by number (and one of the pieces are more rare than others)
OR you just need "x" pieces and make it a full Blueprint

i'd be in favor of the first option, again to make it a bit harder to get all blueprint too fast.

and having a slightly grindy should force Houses to have dedicated "crafter" to have them get blueprints at faster rates than just playing it solo.

Then there's the components part of the craft, i really have no idea how many different component would hit the sweet spot of "feels like an acceptable amount of things to farm" without reaching the "ok that game is a grindfest of components"

I mean obvioulsy Tier 1-2 should only require basic components
Tier 3 some few rare
Tier 4 should be mostly about rare
Tiers 5+ should be mostly rare and a few ultra rare ones

And accordingly the higher tier Pirate/enemy fleet should have higher drop rate of said components (in addition that player should drop a portion of their cargo)

Also ... we wondered with another players with whom we discussed about the game, is it even possible to Loot weapons/blueprint of the Faction specific Items ?

Say you kill a Faction specific Ship... can you hope to drop its blueprint ?
enemy ships is outfitted with faction specific Modules/weapons, can you get them?

on that matter i'd very much like a dev answer, or confirmation from a player that managed to get faction specific items as loot.
Also if no definitive answer, what do players think about that possibility ? should you be able at some point to get those items ?

random thoughts

why do ship never cause collateral damage when destroyed ?

Smaller ship i can understand, but anything bigger than a battleship/battlecruiser should have a good chance of "core" breach inflicting damage (based on how much power they have) + a small AOE push wave around him when destroyed.
It should not be as strong as the kamikaze mod obviously, but when enemies are tightly packed and one of the dreadnough explode, sending ship debris everywhere and no one take damage it just feels weird.

so many warp issue this alpha it was getting frustrating at the end (warp in asteroids, fleets warping on top of eachothers, warping on top of pirate base, basically fucking your chances to finish it) i hope this get addressed in next test.

UI need some work, while it definitely has improved from previous build a few things need to be checked
- Mission panel it's annoying having to hide it all the time, if i chose to hide it i'd like it to remain that way
- Chat that refresh all the time after a loading screen, it needs a log and keep chat loaded even after a loading screen
- while shipyard is a good idea it needs refining, the zoom is too big, you can't sort ships in the order you want
- theres too much loading/sync with server when fitting ships it breaks the flow

Really need a formation builder, we create ships with specific roles in mind, i hate to see my tank carrier warping at the back all the time, i hate to have all my squishy frigates warp in the front and get smashed in second when enemy fleet reach me

need grouping/raid functions
- Optionaly that part would love to see a "follow leader" so that we just follow him to wherever he wanna send us
- Enable Team/Group/House Vision so that we dont suddenly "lose sight" of a friend we followed
- Optionaly could have Shared vision with all Faction member in a sector

need to be able to see house members on the galaxy map, even just a coloured arrow with names would do

Oh yeah olamost forgot, about sound FX some sounds are extremely loud like missiles launcher
- funny thing is the other day i was visiting my mom and played Starfall, she made a remark that most sounds on weapon actually felt "cheap", i didnt really pay attention until she mentionned it and after she did, i also find out that some sounds could use a rework, probably equalise sounds a bit, and improve the sound design to feel less like cheap Sci-fi sounds, also many mods could use a sounds + more visual effects.

When shields are broken right now they basically become useless, unlike armor that can still be healed by modules, regen is so slow/not working in combat that until battle ends you really have no more Shields so to speak.

with my idea when your shield break they enter a "shield regenerating" mode.

Note: shield would require a load of energy to reactivate the initial bubble of energy around the shield , so think of that as a capacitor, your regen is charging your shield capacitor so that is has enough energy to "reboot".

Buffer regen status shows you a bar equivalent to about 25-50% of your Max shield, and your regen start to kick in (like out of battle) when it reaches the 25-50% mark then the shield reactivates/Reboot.

Its probably to add in combination with much higher regen values and slightly cheaper shields to be any effective tho.

Just as of now, the shield are probably the poorest defense value on a ship (see my previous arguments about this)

I think the buffer is probably the best idea for shields, this way Shield AND regen can have real value during battle, and you can have a choice.

Should you pick Higher shield value to act an initial damage soak (but probably wont have enough regen to reboot during battle) OR should you pick very high regen rate so that your shields reboot often in battle to soak damage more regulary and be useful the whole battleOr even just mix and match to get both decent shields and regen to have a bit of both.

Impact Dampening Mod : When ramming, or Rammed, shields are not ignored (enable protection from ramming, or being able to ram even without armor for protection)

Maybe some super rare model droppable only on aliens/pirate-boss-stations could provide a 10-15% to missile/energy/missile ?

Those mods also have the benefit to not break or unbalance already established mod related to shields, it would actually make some of them have actual use compared to now, and nerf the EMP while still keeping it very useful.

Directional shield would only work better, especially if you are blocking damage from the resistance you picked, and would totally be a decent pick for any shield oriented ship.

Overload would need to have its consumption rewored if regen is reworked anyway but doesnt change its utility (either temporary soaking, or heavy invested build in regen to be able to permanently hold it), plus if some other idea i had are also used, it become less "impossible" to beat someone using a permo overload shield unlike this alpha.

Shield breaker (ecplise faction) would be more useful now than ever by dampening shields around constantly (not sure about how stacking it would work, but if it does it would now become a very dangerous mod on the battlefield with this change)

Shield Drain could now be used efficiently (more overall shields to steal during battle)

Shield Regen (Deprived Faction) will now have a real value by providing constant AOE regen to fleet, and thus if fleet is properly build with shield could benefit a lot from it (also not sure about stacking same as shield breaker)

EMP would be a very useful mod to take while not rendering shield useless like previous build

thinking about it, it felt ridiculous that you could just decide to kill same faction

you could just pick a line in front of your own mothership (no risk of retaliation)

If people want to go rogue against their faction it should have real cost (implement a sort of karma/Reputation?)

after each ship destroyed that karma/reputation would go down, after going too much down the player become enemy of its own faction, he cannot use mothership to repair/warp/trade, only can use blackmarket as spawn point and trade with it and all neutral outpost in the outer galaxy.

Also Each ship killed could provide XP sure but should make you lose Reputation/Hrep (you cant gain favorable reputation by killing your own faction !)

Faction Equipement previously own can still be used, but he cannot buy new one until its karma is up (kill enemy faction PLAYER only to raise it), this way people have to really be careful about farming our own ships.

All of them have a chance to drop their faction ship blueprint, i managed to craft pyramid premier and hoooo boy how that thing wreak havoc while being one of the most tanky ship i had on my fleet. (like 5k hp, 15k armor, 6k shield and with over 500dps after some lvl) however the Alpha-mod sucked a bit.

Yep, we will certanly work to balance and improve progression tree. These onew were made in a great hurry I would say :)

On a side note, I think the outer rim of the galaxy should be increasingly dangerous

There were some troubles with pirates respawn, as I remember. Might feel different when we make it all work properly. If still not, well... feel free to remind about it :) In fact, we have a lot of stuff in our mind to be added to pirates.

Another idea is to have a small chance in every battle that an alien scoot be present

Yey, that's really fun! However, not every player shares that opinion:(

FACTION Tree

Just to mention, is was intended like something that gives you just a small nice bonus with time. We could be even too generous sometimes...anyways, as I mentioned above, these trees were made in a hurry and will be fixed, balanced and so on.
And the scheme you siggested here - is what we really planned to do, so most of the ships have first "utility"(like all sorts of armor, regen and so on), "assault"(bonuses to weapons and assault modules, sometimes boost to 1 defensive stat) and "aux. or role specific upgrades". That's not actual for some spec ops ships which mostly have role uogrades, but still. Should may be make add titles for each starting lines later...

add one 2x2 or two 1x2 engineering slot

Sadly, I am pretty sure that we can't afford it due to certain restrictions in bay sizes, forms and some other inner stuff.

OR even better instead of flat rates to things like shield/armor/structure, just make % upgrade that would fit any design and just higher % depending on tier.

In fact, they are mostly in %, we just did that you can see numbers, not this abstract % you should count by yourself.

Balance

Can't say anything here as it really needs balancing:) Anyways, one of our game designers who is responsible for balancing has already read your feedback, so I think he will consider it :)

why do ship never cause collateral damage when destroyed ?

Well, considering our general collision system already, it can turn into real mess now.:(

warp issue this alpha

formation builder

That was a last-day addition, so no doubt - we have a lot of stuff to fix and make better there:(

Chat that refresh all the time

Will be fixed very soon:)

while shipyard is a good idea it needs refining

I am pretty sure we will continue working on certain menu/interface improvements.

need grouping/raid functions

Sounds really nice:) We haven't come really close to implementing these functions, but I hope one day we will have something like that.

Sounds

Not sure if we will have a lot of rework here in the nearest future. For an independent team, focused on creating MMO game, that's not the priority, like it could be for a story-driven quest or so. We have a lot of other things to invest to;)
Still, I am pretty sure (yeah, again) we will tune the volume later.

- Prevent/hinder Same faction supply line/patrol farming

Well, it just doesn't work right now very well, as we would love to. Also find it not really good... so will work to improve it, thanks!

Thank you so much for the feedback, appreciated! Hope to see you on the next test :)